July 17 - What happened on the day I was born?

Home What happened today in history? Blamepro's Almanac for July 17
In the headlines today:

2000	An airplane crashes into a housing development in India, killing 56 people.
1999	Actor Hank Azaria and Academy Award-winning actress Helen Hunt are married.
1996	TWA Flight 800, a Boeing 747 jetliner bound for Paris, crashes shortly after takeoff from New York City, killing all 230 people aboard.
1981	114 people are killed when a pair of skywalks above the lobby of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Kansas City, MO, collapse.
1979	Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza resigns.
1975	The American Apollo 18 command module docks with the orbiting Soviet Soyuz 19 spacecraft for a first-ever in flight link-up.
1971	Actor Cliff Edwards, the voice of Jiminy Cricket in the 1940 Disney feature Pinocchio, dies in Los Angeles at age 76.
1967	Jazz saxophonist John Coltrane dies of liver failure at age 40.
1961	Baseball great Ty Cobb dies of cancer at age 74.
1959	Jazz singer Billie Holiday dies in New York City at age 44.
1955	Walt Disney opens his Disneyland theme park to the public.
1917	Britain's royal family changes their surname from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor.
1821	Florida is ceded to the US from Spain.